Microsoft is running a SharePoint training tour around the country.  It covers, from both business and technical perspectives, how to effectively implement, configure, manage and extend Windows SharePoint Services and SharePoint Portal Server.  In addition to the normal goodies Microsoft normally hands out at these events (software, etc), attendees will get an actual 5 user permanent license for BrightWork's IT Work Manager application, a SharePoint application that assists in Project Management.

Check out the dates, and register at http://register.unitedtraining.com.  If you want a discount (and who doesn't) enter the UTNETDESK as the RSVP code! 

I'll be presenting many of these, and I've got to say, the content, which I received last week, looks great!  It promises to be very, very well worth your time.  Plus, it's cheap!  Two days of training for only $399 with the RSVP code (above).

I'll see you there!  Here's a list of dates and locations!

AZ, Phoenix	Dec 7-8
CA, Irvine	Oct 27-28
CA, San Diego	Dec 1-2
CA, San Francisco	Oct 24-25
CO, Denver	Nov 17-18
CT, Hartford	Nov 10-11
DC, Washington	Oct 19-20
FL, Jacksonville	Oct 31-Nov 1
FL, Tampa	Oct 17-18
GA, Atlanta	Dec 5-6
IL, Chicago	Oct 18-19
IL, Chicago	Nov 14-15
IN, Indianapolis	Nov 3-4
IN, South Bend	Oct 31-Nov 1
KS, Kansas City	Oct 31-Nov 1
MA, Boston	Oct 31-Nov 1
MI, Detroit	Oct 31-Nov 1
MN, Minneapolis	Oct 27-28
MO, St Louis	Nov 7-8
NE, Omaha	Nov 29-30
NJ, Hasbrouck Hts	Dec 8-9
NY, New York	Oct 20-21
NY, New York	Nov 16-17
NY, New York	Nov 19-20
NY, New York	Dec 12-13
OH, Cincinnati	Nov 3-4
OH, Columbus	Oct 24-25
OH, Columbus	Nov 14-15
OR, Portland	Oct 27-28
PA, Philadelphia	Dec 5-6
PA, Pittsburgh	Nov 10-11
TX, Austin	Nov 3-4
TX, Dallas	Nov 17-18
TX, Houston	Nov 14-15
VA, McLean	Nov 16-17
WA, Bellevue	Oct 24-25
WI, Milwaukee	Nov 3-4

I've been frantically working for the past few days on an important Team System demo using the latest bits. 

Folks, we've come a LONG way from Beta 1!  And we still have a ways to go!  The UI is much smoother, and more accessible, however, some things still aren't working efficiently.  Web tests aren't consistently reliable.  Or maybe it's just that the built-in web server isn't reliable.  But it's been a MAJOR frustration!  The workaround is to deploy the web site to IIS to do ALL your tests!  This is a best practice anyway, but once you have it out on IIS, it becomes very difficult (impossible?) to run code coverage analysis on your web code! 

Once I'm done with this beast, I'll be sure to post all the tips and tricks I've learned!

I've been heads-down all week building content for the big launch on November 7, but I wanted to blog about Dave Bost being hired on by Microsoft. He'll be assuming the role of Developer Evangelist for the midwest district, and he's joining at a great time, what with Team System, Visual Studio, SQL Server, and BizTalk Server all launching soon!

Steven Wilssens attended the preconference on Team System that Rich and I presented at PDC this year.  He's blogged it.  But the best is his incredible summary!  He manages in just a few paragraphs to effectively summarize the content of the full day pre-con.  I whole heartedly recommend his post! 

In addition, he's got several other great posts.  I especially like his post on the testing "V model".  It explains how the various classes of tests (unit, integration, acceptance, etc) relate to the software development lifecycle.  You can find that post here. 

I've gone ahead and added him to my personal blogroll.  There's good stuff on his blog for all of you Team System addicts, especially those of you interested in testing.  It doesn't have a lot of posts yet, but the posts it has are all very valuable.  Check it out!

Those of you who know me well, likely know I'm a big fan of TradeSports, a marketplace where you can trade options in things like political races, supreme court nominees and European metric football (soccer) matches.  (They had the 2004 election nailed prior to the polls closing, unlike the pollsters who were still confused two days later.)  So when Google announced on their blog that they were using an internal options exchange to predict their launch dates, when managers would quit and other important internal pieces of information, I was excited.  Even more exciting is they've totally geeked out, even showing graphs like entropy of their decision prices over time.  But the most exciting thing...  IT WORKS!  Google is able to predict their launch dates with a remarkable degree of accuracy!  Microsoft, can we have some predictive markets for your launch dates?  Pretty please? 

You can find the article here.  (Hat tip: Marginal Revolution)

Ever get tired of pushing numbers on your phone repeatedly just to get through to an operator or helpdesk employee, when you KNOW that your answer can't be handled by the automated system.  Sometimes there's a workaround, a fast way to get to a human.  And the wonderful folks at Intuit Quickbase have a list of many commonly called companies, along with the secret handshake to get to a human fast!  They call it their Find-A-Human -- IVR Phone System Shortcuts list. Find it here. 

I especially like this one!!!  They make it hard, but it can be done!!!

Dell Customer Service (800-624-9897) :  option 1, xt 7266966, option 1, option 4, option 4

I just found out that Martin Danner of Arrowrock (one of the professionals that Accentient has proudly worked with several times) has just passed the Project Management Professional certification exam.  It's a 4 hour exam, and that was the last step in Martin's Project Management certification!  Even before his certification, Martin has excelled at Project Management.  He's managed several of our projects here at Accentient, and I'm proud to say that the one's he's managed have been some of our most successful!  Congratulations, Martin!

This adds to his already impressive credentials and certifications, including being an Architecture MVP for Microsoft.

If you've been trying to find GssUtil.exe so you can script the new Beta 3 release of TFS, you won't be able to!  Instead, you'll use the new TfsSecurity.  Luckily, adding groups and individual users uses the same command line (except of course, the name of the EXE), so it's a simple search and replace!  So, in short, there's been a name change, GssUtil.exe is now TfsSecurity.exe (at least for the purposes of roles and logins).

Happy TFSing!

I just found the URL to my forthcoming Team System book on Amazon. This is the revised edition that I just finished last month! Too bad there's no graphic, and the date is wrong. I was told it'll be up there the first of October.

Thanks again for all your support on this!

Update: A friend, Peter Nowak, from Germany pointed me towards the listing on Amazon.de! He also mentioned it in a recent blog posting.

This was a last minute thing that came up, but yesterday morning I presented a 1-hour session on Team System to this virtual conference. I understand that they had 4500+ attendees signed-up. I know that my session had 100 people in it, which is great for a conference that was devoid of any specific tools (most topics were on management, theory, and best practice).

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